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    Your personal history erased...

    The first school I went to when my family returned from Africa was demolished a few years ago and the site sold for housing.

    The Gay Meadow, where I watched Shrewsbury Town as a boy, teen, and young adult is now a gated block of flats.

    The field next door to my house that I played in as a child with ny friends has had monstrous carbuncles called "business units" built on it and has been aggressively landscaped.

    The charity I used to work for has sold the building I worked in for 6 and a half years and that's slated for demolition as well.

    How many places that form key parts of your personal history have been erased?

    #2
    There was that base under the volcano that MI6 and the Japanese Secret Service destroyed in a joint operation back in '66.

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      #3
      The house that I lived in from 2-5 years old has had another house built in its garden (I didn't think that the garden was big enough for that), and I'd be surprised if some of the fields or woods that I played in at that time haven't been built over, but my memory of where exactly I played isn't clear enough to know for sure.
      The place I worked for a few months when I was 18 has since been pulled down.
      I think that might be it, all my schools are still there, though they seem to have added extra buildings here and there. While not all the companies that I've worked for are still in existence, the buildings that I worked in (apart from as noted above) are all still there.
      On the other hand, the building that my daughter was born in was demolished before her first birthday.

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        #4
        The hospital I was born in has long been flats.

        The ground I used to play cricket on as a teenager is now flats

        A few of the newspapers and magazines I've worked for have now gone (though most haven't, including the one attached to this forum)

        I don't think any of the places I've lived in have gone, nor have my schools.

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          #5
          Various pubs that bookmarked my college years and beyond have gone: the Boatswain & Call, White Horse and North Foreland in Chatham/Rochester; The Windmill, Throwley.

          My first primary school in Kelvedon, Essex is no more, I gather, while the fields opposite my home where we used to play football in the late sixties/early seventies was developed for housing some forty years ago.

          The offices near Charlotte Street where I worked at TalkBack in the nineties were all sold some while back, too.

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            #6
            My first job has gone in the last couple of months. A few of the nightclubs I used to go to have closed.

            Birth Hospital; Still there.

            Childhood home; Still living in it

            Both schools; still there

            Building where I started 2nd job ; demolished

            Football pitches where I played first football games; still there.

            First football club clubhouse; now a Mc Donalds.

            Waste ground where we played; now apartments.

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              #7
              Originally posted by elguapo4 View Post
              My first job has gone in the last couple of months. A few of the nightclubs I used to go to have closed.

              Birth Hospital; Still there.

              Childhood home; Still living in it

              Both schools; still there

              Building where I started 2nd job ; demolished

              Football pitches where I played first football games; still there.

              First football club clubhouse; now a Mc Donalds.

              Waste ground where we played; now apartments.
              Also, every football club I ever played for no longer exists.

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                #8
                I live in a part of the world where things aren't particularly dynamic in terms of development:

                Birth hospital (and where I had two spells as a child for different operations) - buildings still there but now occupied by a university
                First house - still there and I live not far from it, the people who have it now (who I think are the same people who bought it after my mother died) have got it looking really nice - in fact that's a bit of a pattern for houses I've lived in...
                First school - still standing, though at the time there wasn't enough room for the number of pupils so I had three years in various portakabin classrooms, all long gone
                Secondary school - there's a school in the same place but it is almost entirely rebuilt now (and renamed)
                Poly/university - I still go occasionally for gigs and much of it is still there and familiar, with some remodelling and expansion
                Some workplaces have been vacated or sold, but there's only one that I think isn't standing

                I still intend on living for some considerable time yet, but I'm willing to bet that Carlisle United won't leave Brunton Park in my lifetime.

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                  #9
                  My junior school closed down the year I left and the building burned down a year later

                  My secondary school closed down the year after I left and the buildings are now used as council offices

                  The chemical plant I worked in as a summer job in sixth form blew up and killed one of the guys I worked with

                  The hall of residence I lived in at uni was demolished soon after I left

                  The company I worked for as my first 'proper' job closed down and the factory demolished

                  proper Jonah me.

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                    #10
                    Most of the buildings that I've lived in as an adult have benefited from some variety of landmark protection, which helps a lot in this respect

                    The tenement that my mother grew up in was bulldozed in the name of urban renewal, which has always saddened me, as the vast majority of similar buildings around it were allowed to stand.
                    Last edited by ursus arctos; 28-06-2020, 17:36.

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                      #11
                      All of the houses, schools, playing fields and the hospital I was born in are still there, in some cases tarted up, in others not having seen a lick of paint since I left them! The one area that has been erased is sports venues, specifically Tooting & Mitcham's Sandy Lane ground (now a housing estate) and Wimbledon Stadium, where I'd watch speedway and stock car racing and went to for karate classes but which has been levelled and is now the site of AFC Wimbledon's new ground.

                      Stamford Bridge and it's environs has changed massively since I first went there but mainly for the better. Loads of the pubs around Fulham Broadway and on the Fulham Road that I used to drink in have gone.

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                        #12
                        All three of the schools I attended have gone.

                        Employer: British Rail went under Major; the east coast main line has been passed around like a ticking bomb.

                        I haven't been back to university digs or buildings or local pubs there. The houses I have lived in are all there AFAIK, but Dickensian features like outside bogs are long gone obviously.

                        It should be noted that erasure is not always a bad thing (e.g. outside bogs) and I only regret the demolition of one of my three schools (the only one associated with happy memories).
                        Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 28-06-2020, 17:46.

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                          #13
                          Wrigley Field is now more than 100 years old, but still recognisably itself.

                          Closer to home, I'm on my third ground for each of the Mets and Yankees (four for NYY if one counts their exile at Shea Stadium while Yankee Stadium II was being built). I've been to more former MLB stadia than current ones.
                          ​​​​​
                          I've seen Cosmos home matches at five different grounds.

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                            #14
                            Hospital where I was born (H.M.Stanley, St. Asaph) - closed in 2012
                            My first house, where I lived with mum, dad and nan - demolished. It's now a block of flats
                            First school was demolished about five years ago
                            First football ground visited (league) - Sealand Road, Chester - demolished and is now an out-of-town shopping centre. The greyhound stadium next door has gone too
                            First football ground visited (non-league) - the Halfway ground, Connah's Quay - gone and is now a housing estate.
                            Banbury cricket club (I played for them for 10 years) sold their ground to a property development company and moved to a new ground out of town.

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                              #15
                              The hospital where I was born is now a Matalan

                              My primary school has been repurposed.

                              The health clinic I remember visiting as a young child has just been demolished.

                              The toy shops and sports shop I used to like to visit no longer exist, in fact too many of the shop I've liked and relied on no longer exist.

                              Every cinema I had visited, and loved may I say, before 1990 no longer exists.

                              The secondary school I went to is now an Asda and its PFI funded replacement was built on a brownfield site that once included a Gas Works and a landfill site.

                              At least one of the free newspapers I used to deliver no longer exists.

                              The business (A cake factory) that provided my first truly enjoyable employment experience, (the funny workmates in case you're wondering) no longer exists.

                              The local pub where I used to go with my Dad to do the quiz, and the place where I had my first pint, is now flats.

                              The part of the university where I did my half of my undergraduate degree is no longer a university.

                              The student union where I had quite a lot of fun no longer has a bar because "students like to go into town now".

                              The centre where I did my masters (different university from above) no longer exists.

                              The business that provided my last employment before the PGCE (Delivery operative for a window company) no longer exists.

                              My favourite football ground in the whole world is now an Asda.

                              I can't find a second hand bookshop in north Wales these days.

                              I have only watched two Wales home matches since 2009.

                              5 out of the 8 pubs I liked in Llandudno have been gentrified.


                              Needless to say I retain my sunny disposition.
                              Last edited by Kowalski; 28-06-2020, 18:05.

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                                #16
                                The secondary school that wingco and I both attended in Leeds (a single sex Roman Catholic state grammar school, originally founded at the start of the 20th century by the Jesuits for all the Catholic Irish immigrant boys, which was turning comprehensive in the years coming up behind us) ceased to exist as a school some years ago and its premises have now been redeveloped as flats. Mixed feelings about that - loads of fond memories but I could have done without all the Catholic religious indoctrination for sure, not to mention the single sex environment.

                                The playing fields of that secondary school up in Cookridge (some miles from the school itself but near where I lived) have long been sold and turned into a housing estate.

                                The law firm I worked for in London for 20 years, in the same location, is moving to a different part of the City this year.


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                                  #17
                                  All my schools/universities are still in place, and my parents still live in the house I grew up in, so there's little on that front that's changed. But a lot of the London clubs I grew up going to closing down really gave me that feeling of losing something personal, particularly the Ghetto and the Astoria (even Trash Palace which only lasted about two years I think).

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                                    #18
                                    Place of Birth (Bellshill Maternity) demolished, houses built on site
                                    Primary School : demolished, nothing built as yet
                                    Church were I attended Boys Brigade : demolished, houses built on site
                                    First senior football ground I watched a match in, and the first one I played on (Broomfield) : demolished, now a Morrisons Supermarket
                                    First place of employment : demolished, houses built on site

                                    Airdrie's new stadium was built in the housing scheme where I lived - on the site of the old brickwork. One of the local worthies used to take shelter in the brickie when he'd been thrown out his house. It's a shame the seating where his makeshift home used to be has never formally been named The Pinty Queen Stand.

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                                      #19
                                      Houses lived in (most of them):

                                      Cae Mur Caernarfon: my birthplace. Still there. Same corner room where I first breathed. How many more people here were born at home? Not so common nowadays though 5 of one of my sister's ten kids were not born in hospital.

                                      Valletta, Malta: no idea


                                      Langer Road Felixstowe; still standing

                                      Hole In The Wall Street Caernarfon: where my taid had a pub. Renovated, but still there.

                                      Falmouth
                                      Helston
                                      Weymouth

                                      No idea. RAF property so likely still existing in one form or another


                                      Manadon Drive Plymouth: yep. Learned to play (badly) cricket there.


                                      Wrde Hill Highworth: still there and judging from Google maps the area is pretty much unchanged.

                                      Dowhills Road Blundellsands: still there in its middle-class glory

                                      Hunt Road Maghull: not been burned down yet

                                      Rhos,Bethel: still standing

                                      A second house in Bethel: still there

                                      Llanberis Road Caernarfon: the same house is still there


                                      Schools:

                                      Private infant school in Plymouth:no idea

                                      Primary school in Highworth: existing

                                      Primary school in Swindon: going strong

                                      Catholic secondary school in Crosby: still there; I wish it had burned down at the time

                                      Secondary school in Maghull: still there

                                      Secondary school in Caernarfon: very much a local bastion of Welsh-medium education
                                      Last edited by Sporting; 28-06-2020, 19:38.

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                                        #20
                                        The hospital I was born in has been demolished.

                                        My childhood home until I was 5 is still there and my mother is still living in the next house we moved to. My bedroom has not changed since the day (well it took a week really) I decorated it age 13.

                                        My primary school still exists but has been extensively rebuilt. I visited about ten years ago when my mum was doing supply work there and barely recognised it.

                                        My 'middle school' which I attended for two years was put into special measures the year I left, then closed down, then burnt down by an ex-pupil.

                                        My secondary school still exists but has changed from being a girl's only school to co-ed and has had quite a lot of redevelopment.

                                        My sixth form still exists fairly unchanged.

                                        My first boyfriend's house which I spent years of my life in, and where we decorated a room bright yellow and with blue aboriginal style artwork to make a party room, has had the whole back half of the house ripped down and rebuilt, and there's no trace of the blue and yellow room left.

                                        My grandparents' bungalow, which they designed themselves, and which I stayed in regularly, was sold to fund my grandfather's retirement home when I was in my twenties, and was ripped down and rebuilt as a two-storey house.

                                        I believe all the rooms and the house I lived in at university are still there.

                                        The "international experimental" school I lived in for a month in Changsha, China is still there.

                                        The hotel I lived in for a month in Ho Chi Minh city Vietnam, seems to have been reopened round the corner with "2" added to its name.

                                        The school I lived in for two years in Chongqing, China is still there though I'll be surprised if the flat I lived in hasn't been remodeled.

                                        The illegal migrant village on the outskirts of Beijing where I ran summer camps for a month seems to have been demolished and replaced with skyscrapers.

                                        Graffiti boyfriend's graffiti painted flat still exists, but we repainted the whole thing white, with endless repaints to hide the graffiti.

                                        Most of the flats / houses I rented in London still exist, even if they've been refurbished.

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                                          #21
                                          The house where I was born is still there, gratifyingly. Looks like a few fans are gathered outside.
                                          This was rented, in case you think it looks a bit posh; and I *think* my parents had just the upstairs for all 7 of us. Could be wrong, may have had the same thing. The council housed them when I was 2.

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                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                            ... but Dickensian features like outside bogs are long gone obviously.

                                            It should be noted that erasure is not always a bad thing (e.g. outside bogs)...
                                            Does anyone still live in a house with an outside toilet? We only got rid of ours four years back and were last to do it on the street as far as I know. Our house was only built in 1927 and in a reasonably plush part of town so must be one of the last anywhere to actually have such a facility unless anyone knows different.

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                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by Greenlander View Post

                                              Does anyone still live in a house with an outside toilet? We only got rid of ours four years back and were last to do it on the street as far as I know. Our house was only built in 1927 and in a reasonably plush part of town so must be one of the last anywhere to actually have such a facility unless anyone knows different.
                                              We had one in Dowhills Road. But that was back in 1969.

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                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by Greenlander View Post
                                                We were last to do it on the street as far as I know.
                                                Mucky buggers.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Got there before me MsD. We got rid of our outside bog about 1980. When you're a little kid, going outside the house to use the toilet on a dark night was a scary experience.

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